COFACE: Families, healthy lives and sustainable future
Families, in any shape or form provide the basis for most of our societies, making them an invaluable entity for policy makers to revolve their development strategies around. The expert group meeting on ‘Family policies and 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda’ taking place on 12-13 May in New York, will contribute to further analysis of the role of family policies in advancing broader development goals and a number of SDG targets. COFACE will be represented by its President Annemie Drieskens to reflect on ‘The role of civil society organisations in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals’, and to provide a European perspective in the debates.
The meeting coincides with the annual observance of the International Day of Families, this year turning around ‘Families, healthy lives and sustainable future’.
From a policy perspective, COFACE promotes three-tier family policies which combine: R for Resources (adequate income and allowances), S for Services (quality and affordable care services), and T for Time (flexible working time arrangements to allow families to care for children and vulnerable family members, to reconcile work and family life). This policy mix has the potential to speed up the achievement of many SDG targets. This was discussed at a European conference organised by COFACE on 19-20 April 2016 in Amsterdam, an event used to kick-start the debate in Europe on the link between family policy and the SDGs, with a closer look at SDG 5: Gender equality.
Thanks to the efforts worldwide and in the EU to reduce the gender pay gap and the gender pension gap, we have made progress but we still have a long way to go. COFACE believes the gender care gap has to be addressed, and its European Reconciliation Package adopted in 2015 provides recommendations on how to achieve this using a holistic approach, rethinking reconciling work and family life needs in universal and gender neutral terms i.e., in terms that embrace both men’s and women’s needs.
The Amsterdam discussions also highlighted the need to focus on individuals’ well-being, and the numerous functions that families already perform, such as caregiving for children, youth and older adults as well as those with diverse vulnerabilities, including disabilities. Empowering families to support their individual members’ health, education and overall well-being are bound to contribute to achieving of several SDG targets. Recent research presented in Amsterdam demonstrated the positive impact of the “Daddy Quota” in Scandinavian countries allowing men to embrace their role as family carers; the need to take a life-course approach in shaping policies; the challenges and opportunities provided by emerging multi-generational families in Europe.
COFACE will contribute some of these ideas to the United Nations today, showing not only the value of family policy and the role of civil society organisations, but also underlining the role of the European Union in the achievement of the SDG targets. The recently launched consultation on a future EU Social Rights Pillar is an opportunity to develop policies which can genuinely support families today and in the future to fulfil their full potential in society.
The events around the International Day of Families will be available via live webcast. You can join the conversation on families, healthy lives and sustainable future by using the hashtags #GlobalGoals and #DayOfFamilies. You can also follow @COFACE_EU and @undesadspd on Twitter.
